50 Random and Obscure NBA Facts That Sound Made Up — But Aren’t
The NBA has been around long enough that its history is filled with stories that seem impossible in the modern league.
Everyone knows Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points. Everyone knows the Boston Celtics won eight consecutive championships. Michael Jordan retired to play baseball, Kobe Bryant scored 81, and LeBron James became the league's all-time scoring leader.
But what about the strange stuff?
There have been NBA teams in Waterloo, Iowa, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The shortest player in league history once shared a locker room with one of the tallest. One coach inserted himself into the lineup when he was nearly 46 years old. A player once recorded a quadruple-double in his first game with a new team. Another collected 41 technical fouls in one season.
Dig a little deeper into NBA history and things get weird.
Here are 50 random, obscure and occasionally ridiculous NBA facts worth knowing.
1. The Shortest and Tallest Players Were Teammates
At 5-foot-3, Muggsy Bogues remains the shortest player in NBA history. Manute Bol stood 7-foot-7, tied for the tallest.
Naturally, they were teammates.
Bogues and Bol both played for the 1987-88 Washington Bullets, creating a staggering 28-inch height difference between teammates.
2. Muggsy Bogues Actually Blocked Shots
Being 5-foot-3 didn't prevent Bogues from recording 39 blocks during his NBA career.
His list of victims reportedly even included 7-foot Patrick Ewing.
3. An NBA Player Was Nearly 46 Years Old
Nat Hickey was coaching the Providence Steamrollers during the 1947-48 season when he activated himself as a player.
Hickey appeared in two games, with his final appearance coming two days before his 46th birthday.
He remains the oldest player ever to appear in an NBA game.
4. Providence Once Won Six Games All Season
Those same Steamrollers went 6-42 in 1947-48.
The six victories remain the fewest wins by a team in an NBA/BAA season, although the lockout-shortened 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats produced the worse winning percentage at 7-59.
5. The First NBA Christmas Game Was in Providence
Christmas basketball feels inseparable from the modern NBA, but the tradition stretches almost to the league's beginning.
The first BAA/NBA Christmas Day game was played on December 25, 1947, when the New York Knicks faced the Providence Steamrollers.
6. Waterloo, Iowa Had an NBA Team before California
Yes, Waterloo.
The Waterloo Hawks played in the NBA during the 1949-50 season.
It was their only NBA season before they departed the league and eventually disappeared from professional basketball.
California did not get a team until the Lakers moved there in 1960
7. Sheboygan, Wisconsin Had One Too
The Sheboygan Red Skins were another member of the NBA's sprawling 1949-50 lineup.
Imagine today's NBA announcing expansion franchises in Las Vegas, Seattle…and Sheboygan.
Denver had an NBA team called the Nuggets in 1949-50.
That franchise folded.
The modern Denver Nuggets descended from the ABA's Denver Larks/Rockets organization and didn't adopt the Nuggets name until the 1970s.
Same city. Same nickname. Different franchise.
9. The Indianapolis Jets Lasted One BAA Season
The Indianapolis Jets played the 1948-49 BAA season and disappeared just before the BAA-NBL merger created the NBA.
Indianapolis immediately got another major-league basketball team: the Indianapolis Olympians.
10. The NBA Once Had 17 Teams
The newly merged NBA entered the 1949-50 season with 17 franchises.
The league then contracted rapidly as several smaller-market teams disappeared.
Today's tidy 30-team league was anything but tidy in its early years.
11. The Baltimore Bullets Won a Championship—and Then Folded
The original Baltimore Bullets won the 1948 BAA championship.
They are not the franchise that later became the Washington Wizards.
Even stranger, the original Bullets folded during the 1954-55 season, making them one of the extremely rare major professional sports franchises to disappear in the middle of a season.
12. The Chicago Stags Once Reached the Finals
Chicago basketball existed long before the Bulls.
The Chicago Stags reached the inaugural BAA Finals in 1947, losing to the Philadelphia Warriors.
The franchise folded in 1950.
On November 1, 1946, the New York Knicks
The game is traditionally recognized as the first contest in BAA history—the league whose records became part of NBA history.
Toronto lost 68-66.
14. Toronto Offered a Height-Based Ticket Promotion
For that historic opener, the Huskies reportedly offered free admission to anyone taller than Toronto center George Nostrand.
There was one problem.
Nostrand was about 6-foot-8, which eliminated a fairly substantial portion of the potential free-ticket market.
15. The Knicks Are Older Than the NBA Name
The New York Knicks began playing in 1946 as members of the Basketball Association of America.
The league wasn't officially called the National Basketball Association until the 1949 merger with the NBL.
The Knicks therefore existed before the "NBA" technically did.
16. So Did the Celtics
The Boston Celtics were also founded in 1946.
Their first several seasons were played in the BAA before the NBA name existed.
17. The Lakers Didn't Start in Los Angeles
Most fans know the Lakers came from Minneapolis.
The stranger part is why the nickname made sense there.
Minnesota's reputation as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" inspired the Lakers name. The franchise kept it after moving to Los Angeles, where it made considerably less geographical sense.
18. The Jazz Name Came From New Orleans
Utah isn't exactly America's jazz capital.
The franchise began as the New Orleans Jazz in 1974, making the nickname perfectly logical.
When the club moved to Salt Lake City in 1979, it simply kept the name.
19. The Grizzlies Name Came From Vancouver
The Memphis Grizzlies inherited their nickname from the Vancouver Grizzlies.
Grizzly bears made plenty of sense in British Columbia.
Memphis kept the branding when the franchise relocated in 2001.
20. The Kings Can Trace Their History to Rochester
Sacramento's NBA franchise has one of basketball's great migration stories.
The lineage runs through the Rochester Royals, Cincinnati Royals, Kansas City-Omaha Kings, Kansas City Kings and Sacramento Kings.
That's five identities spread across several cities for one franchise.
21. The Hawks Have Had Five Home Cities
The Atlanta Hawks began as theBuffalo Bison for 13 games before moving to Tri-Cities Blackhawks before moving to Milwaukee, St. Louis and eventually Atlanta.
Their only NBA championship came in St. Louis in 1958.
22. The Pistons Started in Fort Wayne
Before Detroit, they were the Fort Wayne Pistons.
The nickname originated with owner Fred Zollner's piston-manufacturing business, making "Pistons" an unusually literal corporate-inspired team name.
23. The Clippers Started as the Buffalo Braves
Before Los Angeles and even before San Diego, the Clippers were the Buffalo Braves.
The franchise moved from Buffalo to San Diego in 1978 and became the Clippers before moving again to Los Angeles in 1984.
24. The Warriors Once Played in Iowa
Not permanently—but the Philadelphia Warriors played several "home" games in Davenport, Iowa, during the NBA's early years.
Neutral-site and regional home games were much more common in early professional basketball than they are today.
25. The NBA Didn't Always Have a Shot Clock
Before 1954, NBA teams could simply hold the basketball.
That produced some painfully slow games and deliberate stalling.
The 24-second shot clock transformed professional basketball.
26. An NBA Game Once Finished 19-18
How bad could basketball get without a shot clock?
On November 22, 1950, the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18.
Yes, that was the final score.
27. George Mikan's Team Scored 18 Points—and He Scored 15 of Them
The 19-18 game gets even stranger.
Superstar George Mikan scored 15 of Minneapolis' 18 points.
The rest of the Lakers combined for three.
28. The 24-Second Clock Came From Simple Math
Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone is credited with developing the 24-second concept.
His reasoning was beautifully simple: he believed a good basketball game should have roughly 120 total shots.
A game contains 2,880 seconds.
Divide 2,880 by 120 and you get:
24 seconds.
29. Goaltending Rules Were Influenced by Giant Centers
Basketball's early rules weren't designed for players like George Mikan and later Wilt Chamberlain.
Dominant big men helped force changes involving goaltending, lane dimensions and other rules as the sport adapted to increasingly athletic giants.
30. Wilt Chamberlain Never Fouled Out
Wilt played 1,045 regular-season games.
He never fouled out of one.
For a center who played enormous minutes and spent his career battling around the basket, it's one of his strangest accomplishments.
31. Wilt Once Averaged More Than 48 Minutes Per Game
An NBA regulation game lasts 48 minutes.
Wilt Chamberlain averaged 48.5 minutes per game in 1961-62.
Overtime plus his almost complete refusal to leave the court made the mathematically bizarre average possible.
32. Wilt Played 79 Complete Games in One Season
During that same 1961-62 campaign, Chamberlain played virtually every available minute.
He missed only eight minutes all season.
The man basically treated substitutions as a personal insult.
33. Wilt's 100-Point Game Wasn't Televised
The most famous scoring performance in NBA history wasn't nationally televised—or even filmed in its entirety.
Wilt's 100-point game occurred in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 1962, leaving photographs, radio reconstruction and eyewitness accounts rather than the complete video footage we'd expect from a modern historic performance.
34. Bill Russell Won 11 Titles in 13 Seasons
Everyone knows Russell won a lot.
But writing it out makes it look absurd:
13 NBA seasons.
11 championships.
He missed the Finals only once after his rookie season.
35. Russell Won His Final Two Championships as a Player-Coach
Russell wasn't merely Boston's center in 1968 and 1969.
He was also the Celtics' head coach.
He therefore coached himself to the final two championships of his career.
36. Nate Thurmond Recorded a Quadruple-Double in His Bulls Debut
Chicago acquired Nate Thurmond in 1974.
His first game as a Bull?
22 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocks.
It was the NBA's first officially recorded quadruple-double.
Despite the explosion of modern statistics, only four NBA players have officially recorded one:
Nate Thurmond, Alvin Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson.
No official quadruple-double has occurred since Robinson did it in 1994.
38. Wilt and Russell Couldn't Officially Record Quadruple-Doubles
There's an important catch to that record.
The NBA didn't officially track blocks and steals until 1973-74.
That means statistical monsters such as Chamberlain and Russell couldn't officially receive credit for quadruple-doubles even if their performances would have qualified.
39. Alvin Robertson's Quadruple-Double Used Steals
Three of the four official quadruple-doubles involved blocks.
Robertson's was different.
In 1986 he recorded 20 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals for San Antonio.
40. A.C. Green Played 1,192 Consecutive Games
A.C. Green's nickname was the Iron Man, and it wasn't marketing.
Green appeared in 1,192 consecutive regular-season games, an NBA record that stretched across more than 14 years.
Load management was apparently not part of the conversation.
41. Rasheed Wallace Had 41 Technical Fouls in One Season
Wallace's 2000-01 season produced one of the NBA's most untouchable records:
41 technical fouls.
That's essentially one technical every other game. Modern suspension rules make breaking it extremely unlikely.
42. Manute Bol Once Made Six Three-Pointers in a Half
Bol was famous for blocking shots, not shooting threes.
Then, playing for Philadelphia against Phoenix in 1993, the 7-foot-7 center suddenly started launching.
He made six three-pointers in one half.
Naturally.
43. Manute Bol Had a Season With More Blocks Than Points
As a rookie in 1985-86, Bol recorded 397 blocks while scoring only 293 points.
Few statistics better summarize Manute Bol's NBA career.
44. Dennis Rodman Won a Rebounding Title at 6-Foot-7
Rodman wasn't a giant center.
He was listed around 6-foot-7, yet led the NBA in rebounding for seven consecutive seasons.
In 1991-92, he averaged an outrageous 18.7 rebounds per game.
45. Scott Skiles Had 30 Assists in One Game
On December 30, 1990, Orlando's Scott Skiles recorded 30 assists against Denver.
For decades it stood alone as the NBA single-game record, an astonishing number for a player who was never an All-Star.
46. The NBA Once Had a Player Named World B. Free
That wasn't his birth name.
Lloyd Bernard Free legally changed his first name to World in 1981.
"World B. Free" remains one of the greatest names ever printed on an NBA roster.
47. Metta World Peace Was Once Ron Artest
Speaking of names, the player most fans first knew as Ron Artest legally changed his name to Metta World Peace in 2011.
He later made additional changes to his name after playing professionally in China.
NBA history is undefeated.
48. The Celtics Drafted a Player Who Never Played College Basketball
In 1981, Boston used a tenth-round pick on Bruce Flowers, but the truly strange end of old NBA drafts involved selections that could feel almost experimental.
Drafts once lasted far beyond today's two rounds, producing picks of obscure players who had virtually no realistic chance of appearing in the league.
The 1960 draft, for example, went 21 rounds.
49. There Used to Be Territorial Draft Picks
Before today's lottery system, NBA teams could surrender their first-round draft choice to select a college star from their local territory.
That's how Philadelphia landed Wilt Chamberlain as a territorial selection in 1959.
The system was designed partly to help teams acquire recognizable local stars who could sell tickets.
50. The NBA We Know Is Technically the Survivor of a Merger
The league's official history begins with the BAA in 1946, but the modern NBA emerged when the Basketball Association of America and National Basketball League joined forces in 1949.
Seventeen teams entered the new NBA.
Within a few years, contraction had wiped out clubs in places including Waterloo, Sheboygan, Anderson and Denver.
What eventually emerged was the foundation of today's league.
And that's perhaps the strangest thing about NBA history: the league becoming a global sports empire was never inevitable.
Professional basketball spent its early decades experimenting with franchises, rules, schedules, drafts and even the basic structure of the game. Teams appeared and disappeared. Cities entered and left the league. Rules changed because individual players were too dominant. Records were created before some statistics were even officially counted.
The familiar NBA—with 30 franchises, billion-dollar valuations, packed arenas and players known around the world—is simply the latest chapter of a much stranger story.
And somewhere in that story, a 5-foot-3 point guard and a 7-foot-7 center really did walk into the same locker room.
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